Staff blog interview: Co-Founder Jacinta

Meet Jacinta, Our Co-Founder

For our last staff blog of the year, we caught up with Jacinta our Co-Founder and Director. You can learn more about her below.

What's your role at Dignity?

I’m one of the Co-Founders of Dignity.

What's the favourite part of your job?

I think the variety! Some weeks I’ll be speaking at an event and others I’ll be down at the storage unit sending out boxes in our big give.

What does Dignity mean to you?

To me this means having the means for what you need and feeling good about yourself.

What's been the funniest thing to happen to you during your time at Dignity?

Okay, I can be a bit impatient and sometimes it results in me making some random supply purchases for our Dignity order. We need bubble wrap to send our lovely canisters to our partners and I ordered “Jumbo Bubble Wrap” not really thinking. Hester sent me this photo of Miranda (being really unimpressed) putting it in the elevator and omg, it is enormous. We still have it over a year later and it is over 1.2m tall! 

Why do you think businesses should have Dignity at their workplace?

Having Dignity at work means you care about your staff and you acknowledge that periods are a normal part of someone's life. The question we’d love this to be is: Why would you not have Dignity? It's just like providing tea and coffee, period products are an office consumable.

How can we make periods more normal?

Using the right language! We’ve all used more colloquial terms at times and I think it is important to normalise what periods are. Calling it “shark week” isn’t helpful towards destigmatising a very normal bodily function.

What do you do outside of Dignity?

Outside of Dignity I’ve started a role as a Partnership Manager at FlexiTime, helping to manage their network of accountants and bookkeepers. I’m also Campaign Lead for Positive Periods, a national campaign with a collection of organisations in the Period Industry to push for free period products for students and better menstrual education.

For fun, you can find me at the gym, on the indoor netball court for social netball and reading a good book from the massive pile in my room.

Who do you admire?

I’m a big fan of Michelle Obama and Helen Clark. They are both very smart, powerful woman who are using their global platforms for social good and I really admire that.

What is a quote you live by?

I constantly repeat to myself, “if it doesn’t matter in five years don’t spend more than five minutes on it”. Life is too short to let the small things get in the way.

What would be advice to yourself 5 years ago?

Gosh that was ages ago! I would say to 19 year old me to be kind to yourself, to not look forward too much and enjoy each day as it happens. Live in the moment and drink more water.